Fear Follows Police Pursuit

Family Say Officers Put Damper On New Year's Eve

January 02, 2001|By LORETTA WALDMAN; Courant Staff Writer

The search for suspects in a gas station robbery Sunday led Hartford police through a home in the city's Blue Hills neighborhood, terrifying a family that lived there as they prepared to sit down to a quiet New Year's Eve dinner.

Police said they asked permission before entering the duplex at 49 E. Harold St., but Mark Lauray, 32, who lives there with his girlfriend and two young children, said seven or eight officers carrying various weapons bullied their way into the house and then frisked him and two relatives.

``I felt belittled and scared,'' said Lauray, who was enjoying his first New Year's off in three years. ``It was like we were the suspects.''

The episode began shortly before 9 p.m., when police received a call that three men wearing ski masks and brandishing handguns had robbed the Global Gas station at 618 Blue Hills Ave. While two of the men held employees at bay, a third went behind the counter and grabbed cash drawers from both the register and a lotto machine, police said.

Officers, using a police dog and following footprints in the snow, came to the backyard of a home on Lebanon Street, a few blocks away. Department spokesman Sgt. Neil Dryfe said it was then that the officers noticed people at the house next door, moving on a back porch.

On the porch were Lauray's 13-year-old nephew, Quaron Lauray, and his girlfriend's brother, Philip McDermott, 14, who were smoking cigarettes. Mark Lauray said he had asked them not to smoke in the house because of his small children. When the teens noticed a man staring at them, they alerted Lauray, who was in the kitchen preparing dinner.

Lauray said he stepped outside to survey the scene, then headed for the front door. By the time he got there, police were waiting for him.

``I said, `What's going on?' and they said, `Who's in there with you?''' Lauray said. ``They said: `Were you in the backyard?' and when I said `No,' they said: `Why are you lying? You have snow on your shoes.'''

Lauray said he and the two boys were told to put their hands on their heads and were patted down, while his 23-year-old girlfriend, Clarice McDermott, tried to comfort their frightened 2-year-old daughter and 2-month-old son. McDermott said that officers searched the house and that she was told by an officer to ``shut her mouth'' when she asked whether police had a warrant.

``I felt violated,'' she said.

Dryfe said that Lauray and his young relatives were frisked but that such measures are standard procedure under the circumstances. He said everything was handled ``very politely and professionally'' and that he was surprised Lauray was making an issue of the incident.

Lauray said he called police headquarters Monday to complain and intended to make a formal complaint with the internal affairs division today.

Lauray, a chef for the past three years who now works at Max's Oyster Bar in West Hartford, had been preparing a dinner of pork tenderloin when police arrived.

``This was my first New Year's off in three years,'' he said. ``It was like a dream-come-true to be home. Then it turned into a horror story. We were victims of circumstance.''

Police are still searching for the three robbery suspects, whom they believe may have escaped in a car waiting on Lebanon Street.

The incident is the second time in less than a year in which police have been accused of using excessive force pursuing the wrong suspect. Last July, police confronted a man suspected in a Keney Park carjacking, handcuffed him at his Tower Avenue house, and hauled him in for interrogation though he was wearing only boxer shorts and socks.